


The Haunted

by scapolice



Series: Hauntings [2]
Category: The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-24 00:21:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4898284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scapolice/pseuds/scapolice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you love something, don't let it go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Haunted

All her life, those regrets grew and festered inside. She hid them well, of course, but the light inside her eyes slowly decayed along with the hope she'd see his face again someday. It was wrong, she'd been wrong. Letting him go, it was a mistake.

She'd realised, he could never be happy. The people who loved him, the people he'd loved- they were all here. All mourned him; he wasn't dead, but even if he was, it would have given her more respite than the guilt of sending him off. All the suffering this land went through didn't start with her, with them. Trying to stop it just meant giving up the only defence they'd had, and the only person she'd properly loved.

Her duties eventually led her to marriage. A young duke, not unhandsome or paticularly displeasing. He adored her like the royalty she was, but her heart was someplace different entirely. She performed her duties well, led her kingdom through prosperity and peace- given unto them by the very person she'd taken from herself- she couldn't even go a day without remorse, moments taken out of her days just staring into space.

Sometimes, in the mirror, she thought she saw a figure behind- a blink and it was gone, and she was alone once more. Whether it was her own mind, a trick of the light or a fading image of what had once been there- it didn't matter. There was nothing she could do or say to make it linger. Sometimes she'd pray. Other times, she'd beg. And occasionally, when at her wit's end, it pushed her over the edge and into tears, and she watched herself crumble without a hand to pull her gently back to her feet.

Eventually, she withered. The queen grew thin, distant, and solemn. She had no children. The future of the country would be entrusted to a distant cousin upon her death. The king perished first, but she lingered, like a ghost, a faint outline of what had once been there. On that day, she'd lost her husband- but long before, she'd lost her heart.

On her deathbed, she was alone. She'd requested it to be so. Beside her, sat the mirror she'd gazed into as a young girl, shed tears over whenever she'd seen a second pair of blue eyes, only in the corner of her vision. Wiping away the thin layer of dust with a gloved hand, she retracted her arm to pull the glove off, letting her bare palm press against the glass.

She could've sworn, as the heat left her, there was someone else grasping back.


End file.
